


Tales From the Void

by bluebeholder



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: But I Have to Put These Somewhere, Fluff and Angst, I'm Sorry This Is One Of Those Fics, It's a oneshot collection, Lots Of Folks Appear Here, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: The Void is older and stranger than we can ever know...and there are many paths no one has followed. These are just a few.Short stories originally posted on tumblr, I'm just trying to keep all my writing in one place.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. This is a weird one, so bear with me. I did this for my Fantastic Beasts fic, and with half a dozen short Dishonored fics...I figured now would be a good time to do something with it all. So here we are.
> 
> Will tag specific chapters with archive warnings.

  1. **_Jessamine_**



“Is it a Serkonan thing?” Lady Jessamine asks with great interest.

Corvo shakes his head and sets down his cup to sign that no, it’s a him thing.

“Oh,” she says. She leans forward, elbows on the table. At seventeen she’s not to be trifled with, and although he’s supposed to be her bodyguard she makes Corvo very nervous for reasons he can’t quite define.

Some of those nerves must be due to her sense of humor.

“Is there any particular reason you like it as black as the Void?” she asks, looking down at the cup of coffee sitting between them.

Yes. It tastes better. Is there a problem with that? Corvo gives her a long look, attempting to be neutral and probably turning into a scowl.

She giggles, propping her chin on her hands. “I’m sure all the would-be assassins in the Empire tremble in their boots knowing that my bodyguard drinks such…manly…coffee.”

This is just plain beyond the pale. To restrain himself from saying something sarcastic, Corvo takes up the coffee and drinks it irritably. It’s just a cup of coffee, not some statement on his…manliness.

Is it?

  1. **_Curnow_**



Corvo is a generally solitary kind of man, but Geoff Curnow is extraordinarily likeable. He managed to break through Corvo’s self-imposed loneliness, if only by persistently telling Corvo that he’d enjoy at least having a cup of coffee together. Corvo has finally caved, and he’s nervous of keeping Curnow’s good opinion.

“–really thought he’d get away with it,” Curnow says, laughing. Corvo can’t help but laugh along. He’s not privy, despite his status as the Royal Protector, to the day to day life of guards at the Tower. Stories like this are a nice break.

They’re in Curnow’s house, sitting at the table, while coffee brews. It’s fairly late in the evening. Corvo leans back in his chair and asks after the guard. What happened after his little attempt at insubordination?

“He’s been moved to everyone’s favorite guard post,” Curnow says smugly. At Corvo’s raised eyebrows, he expands: “There’s a post that sits right next to a sewage outflow pipe.”

As they both laugh again–what a companionable man–the coffee is finished, and Curnow pours them both a cup. He’s reaching for sugar when Corvo waves a hand–no, no, he’ll be fine.

“…this is strong,” Curnow warns, handing Corvo the cup.

That’s exactly how coffee should be. Corvo takes a sip and nods. Bitter and dark, just right.

“I know it’s your job to be intimidating, but you could manage to drink coffee without trying to scare the world,” Curnow says. He shakes his head and takes a drink of his coffee, cut with milk and sugar. Just the thought makes Corvo mildly disgusted. It’s black coffee, or nothing.

What is it that makes people think it’s any more than preference?

  1. **_Samuel_**



He spends a lot of time in Samuel’s boat.

In the early morning of this particular day, as they make their way up the Wrenhaven, Corvo is more than a little sleepy. He’s being run ragged. Between nights bothered by the Outsider and days racing along Dunwall’s rooftops in pursuit of Jessamine’s killers and whoever kidnapped Emily, even sleep doesn’t really seem to be helping.

He’s leaning against the side, absently watching the city ripple past, and trying to keep his eyes open, when he’s interrupted. “Here,” Samuel says, and passes Corvo a thermos. “Looks like you need this more than I do.”

When Corvo opens the lid, the heavenly smell of coffee fills the air. He throws a one-handed thanks Samuel’s way and lifts the thermos to his lips. Finally.

“Wait,” Samuel says. “I have milk too, are you…”

No, he is not. Corvo eyes Samuel over the thermos. He is not adulterating the pure coffee he needs for his very survival with unnecessary things.

Samuel sighs. “I know they’re calling you an assassin these days,” he says wearily, “but that doesn’t mean you have to drink coffee like one.”

Corvo squints at Samuel and takes a long, long drink of the bitter coffee. He feels the charge of energy already. Coffee is coffee is coffee.

Why do people care so much?

  1. **_Emily_**



“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Emily says, as they stand in the warehouse observing the unloading of the shipment of coffee from Saggunto, “what it is about you and coffee.”

Oh, Outsider’s fucking eyes.

Not his own daughter too.

Corvo keeps those two comments inside his head. He keeps his expression neutral and his hands patient. What does she want to know?

“Well…you’re the only person I know who’ll just kind of…eat boiled coffee beans, as they are,” she says.

That’s what coffee is.

“No, most people put things in coffee. I mean, you don’t have to go putting chocolate in it like the ladies do, but why not sugar?” Emily looks at him with a smile, absolutely guileless. She’s not trying to be rude.

And yet Corvo feels bizarrely betrayed.

It occurs to him as he makes his slow response that she’s almost exactly the age Jessamine was when they had their first conversation about Corvo’s coffee habits. He appreciates coffee dark because it’s just better that way. Keeps him awake longer, makes his senses sharper.

“It wouldn’t kill you to indulge once in a while,” Emily says dryly. There’s a spark of mischief in her eyes. “I see through you, you know. This is about your image, isn’t it? You can’t be seen drinking something so…frilly and aristocratic!”

Corvo seriously contemplates burning this entire warehouse to the ground, just to prevent any more coffee from ever coming anywhere near him.

  1. **_Billie_**



Being in Karnaca has a few perks. One of them is a local coffee plantation, which is small enough that its produce doesn’t get shipped to Dunwall. It isn’t identical to the coffee Corvo grew up drinking but it’s close enough. He’d like it for the sheer nostalgia, and the fact that it’s also the best coffee he’s ever had is a bonus.

“Feet off the table,” Billie says long-sufferingly.

Unable to restrain a smile, Corvo takes his feet off the table and sits like a normal and well-mannered man. Billie sets a heavy mug in front of him, full of coffee. It’s just perfect.

“So you won’t be taking anything else in that,” Billie comments, sitting down across from him.

No, he will not. Corvo watches Billie add molasses to hers, stirring it slowly. Molasses is the closest thing he’s ever seen to something he might enjoy, but it’s still too sweet and cuts the bitterness too much. He avoids it, too.

Billie rolls her eye. “I know you’re dealing with some shit right now,” she says, “but the way you act is like some kind of melodrama. I have a soul blacker than yours and I still manage to drink coffee like I enjoy it.”

Corvo resists the desire to break the table by beating his head on it. He does enjoy coffee black. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?

**_+1. Outsider_ **

“I refused to try it,” the Outsider admits. He’s still a touch sleepy, an odd sight even now. Green eyes watch Corvo across the breakfast table. “It has addictive properties and I wanted to avoid that when I was essentially starting anew.”

Well, that’s fair enough. Corvo shrugs. He should still try it, at least.

“For you,” the Outsider says, “and only for you.”

Corvo slides his coffee cup across the table. The Outsider wraps his hands around it and stares into it for a moment. He takes a sip, savoring, and his eyes grow wide.

That’s when it occurs to Corvo that he just handed off the bitterest coffee in the Empire to someone who’s never tasted it before.

“That,” the Outsider says, setting down the cup, “is absolutely incredible. I see why you like it so much. Bitter and rich and so many flavors! Why would anyone bother drinking it with anything else?”

And Corvo sees why he likes the Outsider so much.

It’s nice to have someone around who understands.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, PROCEED WITH CAUTION**

_For I have known them all already, known them all:_  
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,  
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;  
I know the voices dying with a dying fall  
Beneath the music from a farther room.  
               So how should I presume? 

~T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

The passing of Corvo Attano is far less remarkable than the events of his life should warrant.

He has been ailing for some time now, though the public is unaware. The Empress has decreed no public panic and given no advance directives for mourning: indeed, as far as she knows, her father is as hale as ever, despite his nearly seventy years.

Corvo knows better. He has expected for some time now that each heartbeat, each breath, each sight will be his last. His bones are tired from years of overexertion. He has given up too many seconds in frozen time to have any left to spare. And he’s so well acquainted with the Void that he can sense it drawing near, about to swallow him with a leviathan’s mouth.

It’s less of a surprise than it should be, when one late night he stands up from his desk and leaves his body behind him.

He feels young again, for the first time in years, and looking down at his hands he sees that they follow the pattern. But they’re fading at the edges, as if he’s disappearing. He’s resigned. There’s no going back, not this time.

“Hello, Corvo,” the Outsider says softly.

“One last time, old friend?” Corvo says, turning to look at the god.

There’s some sort of sadness in the Outsider’s alien eyes. “It isn’t often I regret a mortal passing. You are, as ever, the exception to the rule…I have one last gift for you. Ask me anything, dear Corvo, and I will answer without riddles.”

His concern is not for himself; he’s finished with it, now. “Will she be all right without me?” Corvo asks. Emily may be a grown woman with a husband and children of her own, but still he worries. He has lived his whole life for her and old habits never die.

“Her reign will be long and prosperous,” the Outsider says. “Her daughter will take the throne in her turn, and after an untimely end her son will be emperor. And so it will go. The Isles will remain whole. Your daughter will be happy.”

Corvo smiles. “Good,” he says. “And what becomes of me?”

The Outsider gestures around, at the great yawning emptiness that fills all of the space around them. There’s the faint echo of whale song; the light is calm and gray. “You become a part of this, as men have done for thousands on thousands of years before,” he says. “You fade away.”

“And was it worth it?” Corvo asks. He can see through his hands now, as if he’s looking through smoky glass. “Was all the pain I inflicted…everything I did…was it worth it?”

“That, only history can decide,” the Outsider says. He draws close and the back of one cool hand rests against Corvo’s cheek. “And history will decide. Your story will be told and retold, hundreds of thousands of times. There are worlds where your face is known to thousands of eyes, where your name is spoken with reverence, where you will be remembered in ways you cannot comprehend. And in this world, you will be laid to rest beside the mother of your child. Your name will be etched on the tomb and remembered until the day that the Kaldwin dynasty fails and their crypts desecrated.”

As the Outsider speaks, Corvo’s thoughts are washing away, footprints on a shore as a tide rises, and all he can see are the eyes of the Outsider, and all he can hear is the steady, soft voice of the god and the song of the whales in the abyss.

“And even then when your name is reduced to dust, when Dunwall has been swallowed by the sea…you will be remembered, Corvo. I will remember you.”


	3. Chapter 3

It’s been a long while since Corvo last saw him. The Outsider comes and he goes, as he always has; this time, he’s been gone for longer than ever before. Ten years, it’s been. The Mark still burns hot on Emily’s hand, so Corvo knows that the Outsider remains in the Void, that he’s out there somewhere, watching. Perhaps needling at some new darling Marked man or woman. The thought gives Corvo great amusement.

Their parting had been so unremarkable that Corvo hadn’t expected it to be a parting. The dawn was breaking and so he’d risen and kissed the Outsider farewell, expecting it to be a day or two. The last he’d seen of the god was of a pale figure sprawled upon the sheets of Corvo’s bed, the faintest of smiles marking his face as he watched Corvo go. But two days turned to three turned to a week to a month to a year and now a decade has gone by, and Corvo has not once seen the Outsider.

He had known, of course, that it could not last forever. He had no Mark; his time as the center of attention was gone. The Outsider had given him longer than he deserved. And though the ache in his heart never quite went away, and he still sometimes sat beside the shrine in his hidden room just to feel the vague presence, Corvo managed to let the Outsider go.

Tonight it’s late, and Corvo truly is burning the midnight oil. Or he would have been, ten years ago: this is the age of electricity now, produced without the whale-oil lanterns that he might have used in the past. The light is soft and yellow, filling the room; the papers on his desk are cast in it so they look drenched in gold. Outside the window it’s dark and the night breeze is chill, but the window is open anyway. His back is to it at his desk, so he doesn’t notice until the color of the room changes, the light going from yellow to the deep purple of the sea.

It’s been a decade or more since he was here, but Corvo will never forget the look of the Void. His heart leaps and falls in almost the same instant. It had been an invitation, to leave his window open; now here he is.

“Hello, Corvo,” comes the soft, sardonic voice.

He knows what he’ll see when he turns. The Outsider will be exactly the same as ever, and Corvo is not. For a long moment that might have been only a blink, he weighs his next move. At last he pushes back his chair and stands, turning to face the god standing by the window. “The years are long but it’s always good to see a familiar face,” Corvo says.

The Outsider, floating perhaps six inches off the ground, gazes at him. He is the same, in every possible respect, as if it was only yesterday that Corvo had seen him. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says after a moment. “And still…time catches us all off-guard, in the end.”

He extends a hand and Corvo crosses the room to take it. The Outsider’s hand is still smooth, his skin unlined; Corvo’s resembles weathered parchment now, the years of scars catching up with him. He stands still as the Outsider curiously touches his face with his free hand, fingers catching in Corvo’s white hair and stroking his short white beard, tracing the wire rim of his spectacles. His thumb lingers on the crow’s-feet that have been permanently etched beside Corvo’s eyes; his index finger traces the lines of worry on his forehead.

“I’m not so much to look at,” Corvo says at last, self-deprecating.

“You’ve aged better than many men,” the Outsider murmurs. He lets go of Corvo, both hands resting again on his shoulders. “And there is still far more strength in you than ten ordinary men of your age. Yes…you are the man I remember.”

Corvo thinks of his failing sight, of the scars that trouble him more than ever, of the effects of a life of hard combat and struggle that are finally coming home to him. He’s kept himself well, but there’s not much he can do to change the damage done to his knees or to his back; nothing that can undo the harsh changes time is writing upon him. “Am I?”

The Outsider smiles. “In all the ways that matter,” he says.

When he rises up to kiss Corvo, it’s as if he never went away. His lips are the same, and the way he turns his head is familiar. The feel of his tongue is familiar, the quiet sounds of breath he doesn’t need to take are the same sounds Corvo has heard in his head a hundred times. The Outsider’s eyes flutter closed, but Corvo keeps his open, half-lidded, watching the strange light of the Void play over his lover’s face. The Outsider still tastes of salt and smoke, still so familiar.

“Yes,” the Outsider whispers, when they break apart, “you are still the man I remember, Corvo Attano. I had expected you to forget me. No other man would leave his window open after ten years in case he had not been abandoned, and no other man would so compel me to come _back_.”

Corvo doesn’t know what to say or how to respond, not when he’d resigned himself to a life without the Outsider. More: he’d resigned himself to dying without ever looking upon the Outsider gain. So he merely pulls the Outsider in and kisses him again, and holds him close, and prays that the Outsider can take all those years from him, and understand that he was never once forgotten.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corvo/gender-neutral OC...

Everything you need has already been brought to the spot where you’ll be working in the Tower. You’re nervous, if only because, well, you’re painting an official portrait of the man who singlehandedly saved the Empire. Anyone would be nervous!

Five years ago during the dark time of the Rat Plague, when one empress died and another was kidnapped, you–like everyone else–thought that Corvo Attano was a criminal, a traitor. And then it turned out that, in reality, he was the one who brought down the conspiracy himself. He’s the hero of the Empire and even if you’ve only ever seen him at a distance, you get weak in the knees just thinking about him.

“This is where you’ll be working,” your guide, some footman, says, opening a door. You thank him and step inside, looking around. The lighting is good, and painting in here–a disused library, perhaps?–will be nice. Now you just need your model.

The door opens again and you turn. You almost forget to bow, but scramble into it at the dead last second. Who could blame you? “Weak in the knees” isn’t enough for this. Hearing about the height and presence of this man is one thing and actually standing in front of him is another. “It’s an honor to meet you,” you say shakily, straightening up and looking up–and up, by the Void this man is tall–to meet his eyes.

“My pleasure,” Lord Attano says. “You’re the painter?”

“I don’t know who else I’d be,” you say, nerves twanging as you laugh awkwardly. “If you’d sit down, I could get started…?”

You get a smile for that as Lord Attano follows at your direction to sit down near one window, where the light will be just right. And oh no. Oh _no_. He’s handsome, far too handsome, and this painting is just going to be suffering, isn’t it?

At least the process of painting is easy enough, when you have surprisingly good company. You aren’t sure what you’d expected from Corvo, which he insists you call him, but you’re sure it wasn’t this. He’s a quiet man, melancholy around the eyes, and smiling only rarely. Capturing his attitude in the portrait will take a subtle hand, but you think you’re up to the task.

For a portrait like this, you expect twenty sittings, perhaps, over the course of about two months. You do have other commissions, after all. While you’re being paid a generous stipend for this one as well as payment for the final product, you can’t afford to let your whole business go.

Each sitting is about two hours, and you’ve been in some uncomfortable ones before. But Corvo is a good sitter. His silences aren’t brooding, exactly, and when you do talk he’s animated. You spend a lot of time peeking cautiously from behind the canvas, once you’re out of the sketching phase, trying not to stare.

And all right, he’s handsome, but he’s nice too. Genuinely kind. Appreciative of your talent and complimentary to your hard work. You crack a joke one day, a bad pun, and he laughs. It sounds like he hasn’t in years, like the sound surprised him, and you resolve to make that happen more.

So maybe you developed a tiny little crush on the Royal Protector.

Oops?

When the painting is complete, you regret it a little. But it’s maybe your best work, and you’re proud of it. The young Empress comes to see it, too, when you unveil the final product, and that gives you a nervous attack.

“I look much more handsome there than I do in reality,” Corvo says, giving you a sideways smile. “Influence of the artist…?”

Your heart tries to stop. “No! No, no artistic license, you are that handsome, um…”

Empress Emily giggles. Corvo is watching you with that handsome smile and you’re about to pass out. “Very well done,” he says. “If I suggested that we might be looking for someone to restore some of the historic portraits in the Tower, would you be interested…?”

“Of course,” you say. Stay professional. Stay professional…

“And you’d need a guide,” Corvo continues. “After all, we don’t want you getting lost in here. Perhaps I could help.”

He winks.

He winks at you.

Your heart actually stops.

“Right,” you say faintly. “When do I start?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unrequited Delilah/Corvo.

He doesn’t know who she really is.

No, he’s too important to recognize that Delilah is a princess. For whatever being a princess is worth, anyway. The bodyguard, four years older than Delilah, handsome, foreign, probably wouldn’t care anyway. He, like everything else in this palace, belongs to Jessamine.

It rankles a bit when Jessamine is too young to even recognize how handsome he is.

For all his foreignness and Serkonan accent, he’s unfailingly polite. Even shy, shadowing Jessamine with a perpetual look of worry that will leave him with wrinkles by the time he’s thirty. And he’s polite, more importantly, to Delilah. He doesn’t ask after her, but he does greet her as befits a princess’s companion.

That’s something, at least.

She knows him for a year. Barely a year, anyway, and in that time she falls victim to the fate of every fourteen-year-old girl ever. Delilah gets a horrible, heart-pounding, head-spinning crush. Not every girl, though, gets their first crush on Corvo Attano.

As he shadows Jessamine she shadows him. She watches him training with the guard, sees that he’ll be a prodigy. Corvo will be the best of the best someday, already stronger and faster than men with ten times his experience, and cleverer than any of them.

Every smile he gifts her she tucks away. She keeps records in her head, records of the secrets that lurk in Dunwall Tower. Corvo’s smiles are just one more secret to hide. She doesn’t want to share them with Jessamine.

By the time she’s nearly fifteen, she and Corvo have had a few brief conversations. Delilah is careful never to mention her true relationship to Jessamine; Father would be furious. Corvo listens, when Delilah talks about painting and sculpture and flowers, and asks quiet questions about the difference in oil and tempera paints, or the finer points of hybridizing roses.

A tiny hope is blossoming that maybe, maybe even if she isn’t a princess, she could manage to win Corvo’s heart.

And then…then Delilah is thrown out.

It happens so fast she barely has time to blink. And next thing she knows they’re on the streets, she and her mother, and there’s rage clouding her eyes. She wants Jessamine dead at first, and even when the initial fires of pain and anger fade…the wish doesn’t entirely disappear. Now Jessamine really does have everything.

She doesn’t know how Corvo finds her.

It’s late one evening and Delilah is walking back to the poorhouse from another fruitless day of searching for someone who will hire a fifteen-year-old girl with quick fingers and sharp eyes. No one wants her. The sting of rejection is fierce, but growing duller. She doesn’t expect better, not anymore.

A man falls into step beside her and Delilah jumps. She turns fast, and sees…

“Corvo?”

“You’re hard to find,” he says quietly.

Delilah bares her teeth a little. “Why did you bother?”

“I thought you might need something,” Corvo says. He’s awkward and Delilah feels that old affection glowing a little inside her. Of course he came looking…did he come looking to take her back. “Here.”

She takes the small pouch he offers, feeling the weight in her hands. “What is this…?”

“Three weeks of my pay,” Corvo says. His expression is set, as if expecting Delilah to reject the gift, but she doesn’t. She clutches it tight to her chest, breathing hard. “What happened…it was wrong, Delilah. No one deserves to be thrown out like that.”

“Can you take us back?” Delilah asks.

He shakes his head. “No…they don’t know I left. I won’t be able to come again, I think, Jessamine will be asking questions.”

Something inside Delilah cracks a little. “Right,” she says bitterly. “Because Jessamine is the only one that matters.”

“She isn’t,” Corvo says. A heavy hand lands on Delilah’s shoulder and everything inside her goes quiet except for a scream of wild joy. He’s touching her at last, even if just like this. “You matter. I wish I could bring you back.”

“You do…?”

Corvo leans down and kisses her cheek. “I do.”

Delilah thinks she’s going to faint.

But then Corvo’s gone, back toward the Tower, back to Jessamine. Delilah watches him go, and wishes. Wishes don’t mean anything next to a handful of coin, though, and Delilah takes the full bag back to her mother and they rejoice, if only for a night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by art by the artist deadlilmoon on tumblr...

It is after Sunday Mass that he hears the whisper first. It is as clear as if the speaker stands behind him and accordingly Corvo whips around, looking. No one was left in the church but him, and–

He’s alone.

Unsettled, Corvo looks around. He has never had cause to be afraid in the church before. He trusts this place absolutely, secure in the building and in his faith. It would be less uncomfortable if he were not someone generally considered to be a stable man: Corvo understands that he is unexceptional, and unlikely to be the subject of a miracle.

He must be hearing things.

Yet at Mass the following day, when he is alone, he hears it again. Right over his shoulder, a teasing whisper. _Corvo…_

It continues for weeks, only after Masses. He grows accustomed to it, even ignores it. The whisper will come, just behind him, over his shoulder. It will be his name, always in the same beckoning call. Either it’s a nervous tic brought on by too much solitude or Corvo is genuinely hearing the whisper of something supernatural. To deal with the supernatural, he prays: to deal with the solitude, he makes an effort to spend more time with parishioners.

Nothing works, but nothing eerier than this ever happens.

His dreams grow unsettled. Of strange songs, fiery marks, eyes watching through keyholes. He walks in dark places, lonely places, aware that he is being watched.

He should ask for help, but he’s more than a little concerned about asking for guidance in this matter. This feels more like something purely human and psychological than metaphysical. Paranoia, strange sounds–perhaps he’s finally suffering the affliction of the insomniac.

Shadows flicker in and out at the corners of his eyes, often when he is trying to read or celebrate Mass. It’s distracting. People are starting to notice. Corvo forges onward, convinced that through prayer–

Prayer isn’t working.

It is after Sunday Mass that he finally hears the voice. Behind him, in the nave, among the pews. “Hello, Corvo…”

As if in a trance, Corvo turns. He doesn’t see anything–not anything he can describe–only shadows in the shape of a man, with a suggestion of an impossibly pale face and eyes black as the deep sea. But it’s there, in the church, and he recognizes it. The flitting shadows in his vision. The voice whispering in the silence.

“What are you?” Corvo demands.

The thing laughs. “There are more things in Heaven and Hell…”

The shadows move, coalescing into the form of a man. Thin, only slightly smaller than Corvo, and the face is truly a face now, like a mask.

Corvo does not step back. “Get out,” he commands. “This is not your place.”

“Oh, but it is,” the figure says. His mouth doesn’t move. “It is, because it is your place, and you are mine.”

“I–” Corvo starts, and stops with a cry of pain as the back of his hand burns. He looks down and sees a burning sign on his hand, a sign he’s seen in dreams.

When he looks up the figure is mere inches away, fully in the shape of a man now, with a sly cruel smile and eyes so black they’re like holes punched through his face. The figure takes his hand, studies the mark there. Its hands are impossibly cold.

“What are you?” Corvo repeats, drawing back.

“I am the Outsider,” the thing says, “and this is my mark.”


	7. Chapter 7

He’s only ever seen the Outsider floating, really, or pacing about on surfaces that make him seem to tower over Corvo. And besides, in the Outsider’s very presence is a sense of such ancient and terrible power that Corvo can’t help but feel small in the face of it. He has never, not in all these years, thought of the Outsider as anything but larger than life.

And now here the Outsider stands, looking up at him. 

_Up._

Green eyes blink in a wan face, tilted up to see Corvo. He looks so young, so…frightened. There is no power here, nothing but fear and hope. The set of his mouth is firm and determined, but his eyes are slightly wet. There is nothing cool or composed about this creature, not anymore. 

“I never thought I would have to look up at you,” the Outsider says. 

Corvo nods, struck dumb. He’s still trying to figure out the words, how to say anything, how to say the right thing. There are questions he dares not ask, questions that desperately _need_ to be asked. 

The Outsider’s gaze flicks over Corvo, top to toe. “I never thought…you would be so imposing, in person. No wonder you are feared, when this is how your person comes across to mortal eyes. I certainly wouldn’t dare to cross the Royal Protector. You have far greater stature than your predecessor -”

Carefully, as if he touches a bird, Corvo puts his hand on the Outsider’s slim shoulder. “Later,” he says. “You’re…it’s a relief to know you haven’t changed.”

“Haven’t…changed?” The Outsider blinks, and slowly a smile spreads across his lips. “I _have_ grown a little shorter, though.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Corvo says. He’s unable to take his eyes off the Outsider’s, unable to look away from their brilliant color. 

“I suppose it doesn’t,” the Outsider murmurs, looking back. 

No, heights don’t matter at all.


	8. Chapter 8

_Silvergraphs weren’t around when Corvo was a kid, but a family portrait as a sketch would have been perfectly plausible.  
_

_This is a little clunky, but I’m just getting back in the writing game. It’s also my first time writing trans!Corvo, so please be kind!_

…

The rubble under his feet crunches softly as he picks his way through the debris of this abandoned apartment. It gives Corvo a strange, sharp sort of pain to find this place in such disarray. This was, after all, his home. 

A very long time ago. 

He pauses at the window, smiling faintly at the still-familiar view of the city. It hadn’t been the best apartment, even in those days, but it had been home. A place - for most of his childhood - of security and contentment and even, sometimes, joy. 

Corvo pushes a sheet of hanging vines out of his way and is confronted with a room that he distinctly remembers as the bedroom he once shared with his sister. There’s a bed on the right wall, a window, and then a desk on the left wall of the oddly-shaped room. Once upon a time, there had been two narrow beds here; now, only one. 

He approaches the desk. There’s a book on it, a slim thing bound in cardboard so old it’s turning to dust. With care, Corvo opens it - and freezes. 

There it is: a portrait of the Attano family. For the first time in decades, there’s his father’s face, his mother’s, his sister’s, and…his own. In the momentary tumult over seeing his family, Corvo nearly missed himself. 

“Ah, I remember that,” Corvo says aloud, words startling a pigeon on the ledge of the window into flight. He pays it no mind. He’s much busier studying this ancient crumbling picture of four people who no longer exist. In the image Corvo must be barely eight years old, short and gawky with limbs too long for his height. He looks infinitely more awkward than Emily had at the same age, or perhaps that’s just memory. 

There are other images, clippings of newspapers and letters, preserved with care in this book. But the image that strikes Corvo’s eye is another one of himself, this time at perhaps thirteen or fourteen. Staring straight at the artist, looking vastly uncomfortable in a ruffled shirt, with long hair in a braid tied with a bow. Yes, that would have been before Corvo…well, decided that it was high time to embrace being a man, instead of being shoehorned into what the rest of Serkonos wanted to see. 

He’d been presumed to be a girl until about fifteen, when he’d thrown over expectations to become the man of the family. He could have done it as a woman, that was true; he needed to do it as a man. Very few had questioned the change, since a change like this wasn’t unheard of in Serkonos, and those who did ask questions discovered that Corvo was as capable of throwing a solid punch as any other boy his age. 

And then Corvo had competed in the Blade Verbena as a boy, had been brought to Dunwall as a boy, and discovered that attitudes about such things in Dunwall Tower were as loose as they were in Serkonos - considering that Jessamine had been born to be the prince of the Isles, and not its future Empress. No one questioned Corvo. 

He smooths a crease on the image of his younger self with his thumb and smiles apologetically. “I like to think you’d be proud of the man you became,” he mutters, closing the album and tucking it into his jacket. 

There’s business to be taken care of. No more time for memories.


	9. Chapter 9

The Outsider has always been an enigma to Billie, but he’s become far less so since taking up residence in Billie’s apartment in a dusty, forgotten part of Karnaca. He’s as know-it-all as ever, prone to anecdotes about things Billie doesn’t particularly care about. But she tolerates it, because…well, she can’t say she’s been exactly where he is, but she knows what it’s like to feel cut adrift and lonely in a world that’s far too big.

He feels younger outside of the Void. Far younger. He was fifteen when he went in, and though his time as the avatar of the Void makes him seem much older, he suddenly acquired the gawky awkwardness of the boy he used to be. Billie, if she didn’t know about his history, would think the Outsider a particularly awkward twenty-year-old.

Billie returns from a job one evening to strange noises from the kid’s room: muffled curses, some odd creaking, and then a thud and a much louder curse.

“Everything okay?” Billie asks, knocking on the door. 

She’s answered only by a frustrated, wordless groan. It’s the most vulnerable noise Billie’s ever heard the kid make, and it is…a little concerning.

“Can I come in?”

“You might as well,” he says wearily.

Billie opens the door and has to stop, blinking at the sigh before her. The Outsider is standing in front of the old mirror, looking at Billie in the reflection. She takes it all in at a glance: his shirt on the floor, bandages poorly wrapped around his upper torso, a raw red line under their edge, and white-knuckled hands gripping the edge of the dresser.

“There are safer ways to do that,” Billie says.

He stares at her, green eyes wide and something approaching hopeful. “You too…?”

“No,” Billie says. She leans on the doorframe. “Used to bind to make life easier in my assassin days. Learned pretty quick that you’ll crack a rib, doing what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” he snaps. “This wasn’t a problem in the Void.”

“They make vests that can do what you need,” Billie says. “Not the most comfortable thing, but they’ll sure make you look like you want.”

The Outsider turns to look at her. “And you don’t…mind?”

“No one is going to mind,” Billie says. Privately, she thinks that it’s a shock he didn’t catch onto this in the Void, but then again it might just be mortal insecurity talking. “Mindy Blanchard’s like you too, the other way around. You are who you are, kid.”

He smiles slightly. “There you go, telling me stories. You’re starting to pick things up from me, Billie. What’s next, monologues?”

“In your dreams,” Billie says. She pauses, and says, “Let’s get you measured later, and I can make one of those vests happen.”

The look of delight on his face as she closes the door is pretty damn rewarding.


End file.
